Mitt Romney shakes hands with Gary Ruble, CEO of Cemen Tech in Indianola, at a business roundtable campaign stop in Pella today. Ruble,who hosted Michele Bachmann at his factory recently. said he was impressed with Romney, but not willing to commit to any candidate yet. (Rodney White/The Register)

Pella, Ia. – Mitt Romney said if he were in the White House today, what he’d do to fix the economy would be to listen to business people and craft a series of economic proposals.

“I sure as heck wouldn’t be on a bus tour if I were the president of the United States,” he told reporters after a “business roundtable” campaign stop at Vermeer Corporation in Pella.

That was a dig at President Barack Obama, who will do a three-day “economic bus tour” of the Midwest Aug. 15-17, including a stop in Iowa, to “hear directly from Americans, including local families and small business owners” and discuss ways to grow the economy, according to a White House news release.

Romney said he’s confident he would win the White House if Republicans choose him as their nominee – and that he would claim victory in the swing state of Iowa in 2012.

“I believe I’m the best equipped to be able to provide this nation the leadership that’s necessary to get our economy back on track and to restore the kind of values that have made America such as successful economic and moral engine in the world,” he said.

Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, is in Iowa for a two-day visit centered on the nationally-televised Fox News/Iowa GOP debate tomorrow night at 8 p.m.

After talking with a friendly audience of 13 business leaders in Pella (with about three times that number of reporters looking on), Romney will hit a fundraiser this evening in Des Moines and the Iowa State Fair tomorrow morning, accompanied at his request by Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley.

Romney is single-mindedly focused on the economy on his second trip this year to Iowa, home of the leadoff vote in the 2012 nominating process.

When asked about social issues – abortion, gay marriage – he answered that people can read his book to find answers. He then went back to talking about the economy.

Referring to Obama, he said, “I would probably acknowledge if I were him that the policies of the last 2 ½ years were exactly the opposite of what America needed. Does anyone really think that what America needed at a time like this was a new entitlement called Obamacare with a trillion dollars of additional spending?”

During the roundtable, he said he thinks the current Democratic administration is anti-business.

“The perception – and in my opinion, the reality – is that the administration has been an anti-business, anti-job, and anti-investment administration,” he said.

That’s ironic, said Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.

Massachusetts never recovered jobs it lost in the 2001 and 2003 recessions and ranked 47th in the nation in job creation during his term as governor, she said.

“(Romney’s) track record is really almost nonexistent,” she said in a telephone interview with The Des Moines Register. “We’re talking about somebody who would’ve allowed the American job industry to just go down the tubes. … This is a candidate who has not supportive of American jobs.”

Obama has created jobs for 17 straight months, including 2.4 million private sector jobs, she said.

“And for (Romney) it’s just so hypocritical and transparent for him to ciriticize the health care reform law that he championed in his own state,” Wasserman Schultz said. “Voters see right through that.”

Des Moines businessman David Oman, who supported Mike Huckabee for president four years ago but now is solidly behind Romney,organized the roundtable. He said he was happy to hear Romney say Iowans will “see more of me from time to time between now and January.”

With a grin, Romney told reporters: “I’d like to do darn well in those caucuses if I’m able to do so.”

Romney, who was last in Iowa for a forum sponsored by a business partnership on May 27, has faced some criticism from Iowans for his decision to not participate in Saturday’s Iowa Straw Poll, an event he won four years ago. His name will be on the ballot, but his campaign is making no effort to bus supporters to the Ames event.

One business leader at the roundtable, Pella City Councilman Jim Mueller, chief operating officer at Storey Kenworthy, said Romney “came this close to saying ‘term limits’ and I would’ve loved to hear him say it.”

Romney said he spent 25 years leading “four different enterprises successfully,” and that federal officials need business experience.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if people in Washington had actually spent a good part of their career working in the real economy? They’d have the experience of being in a small business or a big business or some business, some enterprise of some kind and understood how the world works,” he said.

Asked about likely presidential candidate Rick Perry, a Texan Romney has referred to in the past as a great governor, he said: “I’ll get a full view I’m sure of all the successes of Governor Perry. He’s a fine man and a fine governor and the record of Texas I think speaks for itself.”

Perry has served the most consecutive years as governor in the nation, with a decade in the Texas governor’s office. Before that, he was lieutenant governor, agriculture commissioner and a state legislator.

Oman lined up the business leaders at today’s roundtable with Romney:

Daryl Bouwkamp, international business development director for Vermeer Corp.

Denny Van Zanten, a vice president at the window and door manufacturer Pella Corporation

Jim Mueller, a Pella city councilman and chief operating officer at office furniture and supply company Storey Kenworthy in Des Moines

Curtis Baugh, owner of Pella Art & Graphics, a small printing and public relations firm